Yorke smiled, but he did not consider it necessary to add that Betty had once let compassion and gratitude get the better of her loyalty in the matter of a prisoner, to Oliver’s own discomfiture.

There had been some changes in the Wolcott home:  Pamela had gone forth from the mansion a bride, after Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown, and Josiah Huntington had worn a major’s uniform on his wedding-day.  Betty had scarcely recovered from that break in the home circle when Sally Tracy, with many blushes and much laughter, confessed that she, too, was about to follow Pamela’s example, and that a certain Mr. James Gould, the gentleman from Branford, of whom Moppet had been so suspicious, was the lucky individual upon whom she intended to bestow her hand.  Verily, with all these wedding-bells sounding, Betty began to feel that she was likely to be left alone, but who only laughed gayly when twitted with her fancy for maidenhood, and danced as merrily at Sally’s wedding as if her heart had lain light in her bosom instead of aching bitterly for one whom she began to fear she should never see more.

Little did Betty guess that bright October morning, when she and Moppet went forth bent on a nutting excursion, that a courier was even now speeding on his way whose coming would change the tide of her whole existence.  And when, as noon struck, Oliver Wolcott dismounted at the door of his home and, walking straight to his father’s study, delivered a packet from General Wolcott to Miss Euphemia, his next move was a descent upon Miss Bidwell’s parlor and a hasty demand for Betty.  So when Moppet and Betty appeared, rosy with success and a fair-sized bag of nuts as the result of their joint labors, they found the household in a state of suppressed excitement, and lo! the cause was Oliver’s approaching marriage.

“You see,” explained Oliver, when he finally got Betty to himself for a walk in the orchard after dinner, “now that the treaty has been signed in Paris, the British will soon evacuate New York, and when our army enters, there will be grand doings to celebrate the event, and my father must ride at the head of the Connecticut troops on that day.  I, too, Betty, God willing, shall be with the Rangers, and thinking the date will be about a month hence, Kitty and Madam Cruger have set our wedding-day as the 25th of November.  I gave you Kitty’s letter”—­

“Yes, and a dear, kind letter it is.  She bids me for her bridesmaid, Oliver, and says that Moppet and Peter will hold her train, after the new English fashion (which no doubt is her mother’s suggestion, for I think Kitty does not much affect fancies which come across the water), and, oh, Oliver, I do indeed wish you joy,” and Betty’s eyes brimmed full of tears as she gave him her hand.

“I know you love Kitty,” said Oliver, kissing her cheek, “and we can afford to forgive a wedding after the English mode, as, if I gain my Kitty, I care but little how she comes.”